r, 1,000 francs a year; 'the abundant' not to
exceed 9,000 francs, of which one-half should go to the State; and the
'superfluous,' the whole of which must be paid into the public treasury,
was a good Jacobin when he made this classification. He lived to become
a good Imperialist, and to accept from the Emperor the title of Count,
with a very large 'superfluous' income, of which he made very good use
for his own private pleasure and satisfaction. The question as to these
decrees of 1852 was brought up before the National Assembly on September
15, 1871, by the Comte de Merode, who, 'in the name of justice and of
common honesty,' insisted that the Treasury should cease to receive for
public uses the income of the private property of the Orleans family,
illegally confiscated by the decrees of January 22, 1852.

The Government of the Republic at once responded that 'the
responsibility of this act of spoliation belonged exclusively to its
author; and the subject was referred to a Committee. This Committee
reported in 1872 a law founded, in the plain language of the Committee
'upon that principle of common honesty which forbids' man to enrich
himself at the 'expense of his neighbour.' The Report states that of the
'fifty-one direct descendants then living of King Louis Philippe, not
one, to their honour be it said, had addressed any request on the
subject, either to the Government or to the Assembly.' It states also,
that having examined the subject carefully, the Committee were
unanimously of the opinion that it was the duty of France 'to restore to
the owners of this property what belonged to them; no longer to keep in
the hands of the State what had never belonged to the State.' The
Committee, considering the frightful disasters brought upon France by
the war of 1870-71, could not recommend, said the Report, 'that the
Treasury should now undertake absolutely to repair the consequences of
an act repudiated by France. What it recommended was, that the Orleans
family should be put into possession of all that was left of its own
property, not that it should receive back the equivalent of the sums
already consumed and dissipated.' At that time the Treasury had
alienated under the decrees of 1852 no less than 70,000,000 francs of
this lawful property of the Orleans family, unlawfully seized and
confiscated. The whole property, when seized in 1852, was estimated by
the Committee of 1872 at 80,000,000 francs. Between 1853 and 1870